


Patterns always emerge...even in chaos

by Amiodara



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Body Horror, Body Horror With a Hint of Fluff at the End?, Experimental Style, Implied Discrimination against Augs, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Nonhuman Character is Ashamed of Their Body, Pining While Dreaming, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amiodara/pseuds/Amiodara
Summary: Adam knows it's unhealthy, wrong. Comes with a price, usually.But still...he keeps going back. Endures everything that may come afterwards.Just to feel the touch of human hands.Again.And Again.
Relationships: Adam Jensen/Jim Miller
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24
Collections: Minigame: Round 1





	Patterns always emerge...even in chaos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Masu_Trout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/gifts).



“Get to work, clank.”  
Hands tug on his hair, and despite their roughness, he can’t help but moan. He always underestimates how much he craves touch until he’s experiencing it again.

“Show me you’re at least useful for something.”  
He opens up and accepts.

“Yeah, take it all, slut.”  
Swallows and hums deep in his throat. It shouldn’t feel so good, but it still makes heat coil at the base of his spine.

“You should be grateful, servicing a natural.”  
He bobs his head, sucks desperately, chokes himself on hot flesh – he needs more, still more - 

“It’s all you’re ever good for.”  
He feels himself twitching against the confines of his trousers, nearly in sync with the throbs in his mouth -  
He laps up the bitterness like the finest wine, and feels drunker as any booze could get him, these days. Maybe this is why he keeps doing it.

\---------------------------------

The walk home is a blur.  
Threads of familiar disgust, black as his fingers, slither up through him, spreading over the buoyant bubble in his chest, pulling it slowly down under the last waves of paper-thin bliss.

\---------------------------------

He comes to again when he’s sitting in his shower, under scorching water.  
Feels the cracks run through him like they ran through the dingy bathroom tiles under his knees.  
Why does he always crawl back again and again, why can’t he get enough if he always feels so dirty afterwards?

He scrubs himself raw, scours his arms and legs as if he’d kept going long enough, metal would wash away like a stain and give way to forgotten skin -

_You should be grateful._

Grateful.

_Grateful._

He isn’t.  
He can’t be _grateful_ for carbonfibre arms or cybernetic eyes or a metal heart.  
He never wanted - 

He wants to claw at his chest, tear this lump of metal and polymer mesh out of his ribcage -  
for a second, it’s almost tempting.  
He could.  
His hands – the hands he controls – can crush concrete.

Ribs aren’t as sturdy.

He folds his arms around him, lets fingers curl in his reinforced flesh (not human, not anymore, it can stop bullets but not...this) until the steadily growing pain makes him resurface with a gasp.

The fingers don’t dig as deep as they could. Don’t draw blood.

Sometimes, he needs to see. To see if there’s still life in him, warm and slick and red.

Not today.

He grabs the towel, damp from the steam curling through the air.  
Dries himself off, perfunctorily, at least until he’s not dripping anymore.

Stops at fingerprint-shaped bruises on his flanks, already fading, only minutes after they bloomed.  
Too rapid for a human.  
Too painful to be anything but.

He’s too tired to add more.

\---------------------------------

He washes down the sleeping pill with a swig of cheap vodka. Suspends the Sentinel to the bare minimum. It’ll keep him breathing, nothing more.  
Shakes another pill from the bottle. Another swig. The booze burns on the way down.

\---------------------------------

The ceiling fan turns and turns above him. Slowly, a barely tangible breeze whispers across his chest. He takes another swig to counter the chill.  
The world grows blurry along the edges. Darker, but not in a bad way. The sharp, bitter thoughts slicing through his brain dull and slow. He feels weightless and leaden at once.  
Soft, downy pressure settles on his eyelids.  
He doesn’t resist.

*************************************************

The dreams are fleeting, always glimpses, flashes -  
He dreams of hands.

Solid on his shoulders, melting kevlar while a hundred thousand horse power resonate around him. Or it’s just his heart.  
They're clearer now, more distinctive, fingers and pads and palms – thin fabric dissolves, the scraps fluttering away in the thrum.

Skin on skin. He gasps at the long-forgotten sensation.

They move down his chest, gently exploring.

_Please. Touch me. Heal me. Make me whole again._

The hands draw tingling lines of warmth on him, leaving new, old, foreign skin in their wake.

Calloused palms caress over ports and bolts, and when they move on, scars and titan alloy are gone and life’s blooming under the hands, melting away everything he resents (everything _inhuman_ ) until he’s complete.  
A strange concept, hands leaving sparks of pleasure in their wake instead of bruises

He dreams of a body against his, solid and warm, with broad shoulders and a delicate dip between the collarbones. He presses himself against him, wants to melt into the other.

The sensations shift when the hands cross the border between skin and metal.  
They grow sharper and blurry, buzzing around like his brain can’t really place them. Artificial receptors weren’t made for signals like slow strokes and gentle caresses.

The whisper of hands over his skin – yeah, it’s _his_ now -, the soft rasp of stubble under his jaw and down his neck, followed by soft lips and gentle bites.  
Hands slide down, over him. Stop on him, curl around him, _yes, there_ and _more please. more_

Restless hips, grinding up into friction, sweet friction – warm human skin, a moan, rough and loud in his ears.

An equally hoarse voice on his mouth, _do you like that?_ \- deep rumbles slither down his throat, pooling low in his stomach. He laps them up, tastes licorice and black Java.

_Yes. Please, more -_

Slick fingers between his legs, massaging, wandering, circling him, gently, carefully breaching him -  
The welcome burn climbs his vertebrae and blooms into pleasure, bringing him higher into the sprawling night -  
A twist and a crooked finger in all the right places -

_Let go, Adam_

A million neurons fire on a single command – and he’s falling out of the sky in a billion sparks, lingering slow golden seconds until their embers fade -

_I’m here. I’ll catch you_

He sinks down into waiting arms and lets himself be cradled against an autumn-warm body, with a warm, welcoming scent of leaves and herbs.

Still nothing more than a blanket of ash, grey and scattered and the fire all but a distant memory, he listens to the calm steady pulse of life in his ear

Reassembling him.

Ash coagulates into forgotten skin. Waiting limbs get repossessed. The last flickering remnant embeds itself into his chest.

He breathes. Whole again.

A low, resonating voice around him.

“Rest.”

He does.

**Author's Note:**

> First work posted: Check  
> First exchange completed: Check  
> \o/  
> Now it's way too late. Deadlines before workdays are... deadly.


End file.
